Tax Watch columnist David McKay Wilson explores the Cuomo administration's rejection of housing aid for a senior housing complex near Indian Point.

When Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in early 2017 that Indian Point would be closing, he vowed to work with the village of Buchanan to reinvent itself for apost-nuclear future.

But two years later, as his task force on Indian Point’s future considers housing on a decommissioned part of the Indian Point campus, his administration has denied crucial funding to a 42-unit project for seniors proposed for a wooded site by the nuclear complex’s northern gate.

Buchanan Mews, which is six years in the making, would include 35 affordable apartments that Westchester County wants to count toward its obligation to create 750 affordable units under a federal housing settlement.

The 7-acre site is across the street from a 9-acre park along the Hudson River.

On Tuesday, Community Housing Innovations, the White Plains-based housing nonprofit developing the site, learned that the Mews would not qualify for funding through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program because of “its proximity to multiple undesirable land uses.”

The state Division of Homes and Community Renewal determined that the neighborhood just north of the plant, at Bleakley Avenue and Broadway, was so dangerous and unhealthy that renewal through affordable housing for senior citizens did not merit public investment.

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Across the street from Buchanan News is Lents Cove Park, along the Hudson River.(Photo11: David McKay Wilson/The Journal News)

“The review confirmed that the adverse site conditions and proximity to multiple undesirable land uses are overwhelming and therefore prevent HCR from supporting the development of housing on that site,” wrote Darren Scott, the HCR's director of development.

HCR spokesman Charni Sochet said it would be unsafe and unhealthy for seniors to live in this Buchanan neighborhood, that it posed "a significant health and safety risk to the vulnerable seniors who would call it home."

Developer Glenn Griffin, left, with Alexander Roberts and Troy DeCohen of the Interfaith Coalition for Social Change at Buchanan Village hall in 2016.(Photo11: David McKay Wilson/The Journal N)

The agency is concerned that air pollution from nearby industrial sites and truck traffic along Broadway was a threat to seniors.

That came as a surprise to Stephen Lopez, director of design and development for Timothy Miller Associates of Cold Spring, which conducted the project's environmental review. Lopez said he saw scant truck traffic along Broadway during multiple visits to the site. Air pollution issues were never raised by village officials.

"There's hardly any traffic there at all," he said. "It’s very curious that truck traffic would have been a reason to deny the funding."

Alexander Roberts, executive director of Community Housing Innovations, said that there have been almost $400,000 in development costs, including several environmental studies required by the Buchanan Planning Board to obtain site-plan approval.

“The project is dead without the state financing,” said Roberts. “We can’t finance it any other way.”

State Assemblywoman Sandy Galef, D-Ossining, said the Cuomo administration’s denial of funding for the project sent the wrong message to those concerned about Buchanan’s future.

“That sets a terrible precedent for anybody in Buchanan,” Galef said. “Why would New York state do that? I call for them to re-evaluate their decision. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Mayor Theresa Knickerbocker, who had opposed the project, was on vacation and could not be reached for comment. Emails to four other village board members were not answered.

The rejection comes at a time of great concern in Buchanan, following Cuomo’s 2017 announcement that he'd struck a deal to shut down Indian Point by 2021. While environmentalists hailed the accord, the closure was not welcomed by all. The shutdown will result in the loss of an estimated 1,000 jobs and up to $24 million a year in property-tax revenues to the village, the town of Cortlandt, the Hendrick Hudson school district and Westchester County.

Cuomo, who was secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton, has a storied past in Westchester's affordable-housing wars. He launched his housing-advocacy career in Westchester three decades ago when his nonprofit built the WestHELP homeless housing complex in Greenburgh. Those apartments will become senior housing under Westchester County ownership.

For years, the Buchanan site was zoned for light-industrial use. But the village’s 2005 comprehensive master plan designated the site for senior housing.

The 1.7-square-mile village is Westchester’s smallest municipality, with just 2,200 residents. Westchester's 2005 affordable-housing allocation plan recommended that Buchanan build 50 affordable units by 2015. The Mews would be Buchanan's first multifamily affordable-housing complex.

The site includes a pond, a hardwood forest and a hill toward the rear of the parcel. The three-story building would face Buchanan's Lent's Cove Park along the Hudson, which includes ball fields, a boat ramp, as well as trails, picnic tables and benches. There’s also a BeeLine bus stop at the corner of Broadway and Bleakley, and a sidewalk along Broadway heading north a quarter-mile to Peekskill.

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The northern entrance to Indian Point is across Broadway from Buchanan Mews.(Photo11: David McKay Wilson/The Journal News)

Across Lent’s Cove stands Westchester’s Charles Point Resource Recovery Facility, which turns trash into energy and has state-of-the art scrubbers on its smokestack to limit emissions. It’s next door to Fin and Brew, a restaurant and brew pub.

Just east of the 7-acre site, and on the other side of its hilltop, is Greentown Road, a light-industrial area that includes a storage yard for AAA Carting garbage trucks and the village of Buchanan sewage treatment plant.

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The site for Buchanan Mews site is on seven acres, on the right side of Broadway, in Buchanan.(Photo11: David McKay Wilson/The Journal News)

County Executive George Latimer's spokeswoman, Catherine Cioffi, said top county officials have reached out to the state.

“The denial of funding for this project has just come to our attention and we have been reaching out to the HRC to find out the specifics of this development,” she said.

The rejection comes three years after Roberts teamed up with landowner Glenn Griffin, who in 2012 proposed building 120 senior apartments for those 55 and older.

The village board pushed back, with Griffin agreeing to 66 units and limiting occupancy to those aged 62 and older. He won support from Westchester County, which pledged financial assistance to build affordable apartments to comply with the federal housing decree.

Opposition arose, however, when Buchanan residents and elected officials learned that the housing would be marketed throughout the region, and would not be reserved for village residents.

After Tax Watch detailed the opposition in 2015, federal housing monitor James Johnson intervened, writing to then-County Executive Rob Astorino that the federal decree required the county to use “all available means” to counter local opposition. Astorino encouraged Buchanan to approve the zoning change and committed $3.7 million to support its construction.

By June 2016, the village board had approved the zoning change, allowing 42 units of senior housing. CHI won Planning Board approval a year later. With the approvals in hand, Roberts sought state funding. But then came the letter on Tuesday.

It marked the second round of tax-credit funding in which Buchanan Mews was rejected.

‘We worked so hard with the village to come up with a satisfactory compromise,” Roberts said. “We are very disappointed.”

Follow Tax Watch columnist David McKay Wilson on Facebook or on Twitter @davidmckay415.